Weather Blog: Severe Weather Threat Today, Cooler Weather Looms

Thank you for stopping by the Weather Watch 12 Blog! A slow moving storm system will continue to linger across the Midwest the next couple of days.

The system will trigger potentially severe thunderstorms, and keep summer-like warmth around another day or two. In today's blog we breakdown severe weather chances and look at a big cooldown that will lead us into the holiday weekend.

Let's start with storm reports that poured in Sunday and early Monday across the nation's mid-section. Below are storm reports from 7am Sunday to 5:10am Monday.

Another day of severe weather is possible across the central U.S. The Storm Prediction Center's day 1 convective outlook below shows almost all of Wisconsin under a slight risk of severe storms through 7am Tuesday. The severe weather window for southeast Wisconsin looks to be highest from Monday late afternoon through early Tuesday.

The map above is broken down into 3 categories by the SPC. Here are the threats for the Milwaukee metro area. The percentages represent the chance of severe weather within 25 miles of a point.

Tornado 5%

Hail 15%

Damaging Winds 15%

All of the percentages above represent fairly low chances for severe weather. Again we are always keeping an eye out for you. If severe weather does form, make sure to tune to WISN 12 or just load our free WISN 12 News app to your tablet or smartphone.

Along with the severe threats above any thunderstorm may produce heavy rain and vivid lightning. The Future Rain map below shows forecast rain totals from now through Wednesday at 9pm. The map below is a great example of how totals will vary across the area, due to the scattered nature of thunderstorms.

As low pressure slides east on Wednesday, surface winds will turn north-northeast drawing in cooler temperatures. Highs will drop from the 70s and 80s to the 50s and 60s by late week and to start the holiday weekend. Below is the Weather Prediction Center surface forecast map valid Thursday at 7am. High pressure to the north of Wisconsin will filter in cooler air on northeast winds.

By Thursday, highs will drop to the 50s in Milwaukee. Below is the GFS temperature forecast map valid at 1pm. Notice the very cool air streaming in from Lake Michigan. Expect the cooler than average weather to stick around for at least the first two days of the Memorial Day weekend(Friday & Saturday).

The focus for today is on the potential for strong storms. Make sure to keep an eye to the sky later today and stay with Weather Watch 12 for updates.

For the latest weather information watch WISN 12 News, and for updates throughout the day follow me on Twitter @jnelsonweather